There were once more than one hundred thousand of the animals in Africa and Asia. But over the past century, that population has dropped to about ten thousand. Today, cheetahs are mainly found in twenty-four African countries.

Yet the cheetah population has started to recover because of one woman. Her name is Laurie Marker.

Two baby cheetahs at the Nairobi Orphanage, part of Kenya's Wildlife Service

LAURIE MARKER: “I started working with cheetahs when I lived in Oregon – I ran a wildlife park there. This was back in the early seventies and nobody knew anything about cheetahs, and I was fascinated about them. And the more people I asked, they said when you find out something about cheetahs let us know, they don’t do well in captivity, they have a very short lifespan, and we’re losing them throughout the ranges in the world. So that just made me fascinated and I wanted to know everything there was about them.”

FAITH LAPIDUS: Laurie Marker traveled to Namibia to learn as much about cheetahs as she could. The African nation is home to the world’s largest wild cheetah population.

LAURIE MARKER: “Understanding about how the cheetah lives is really important. So understanding its biology and its behavior, understanding the ecology of it, which really revolves around where it’s living and how it’s living, and that interfaces with humans.”

BOB DOUGHTY: In nineteen ninety, Ms. Marker founded the Cheetah Conservation Fund, a not-for-profit group with offices in Namibia. The group carries out research and offers educational programs. It also develops ways to fight some of the biggest threats to cheetahs, including clashes with farmers.